The Red Sox are out to a 3-1 lead against the Orioles, getting to Wei-Yin Chen in the third to break a 1-1 tie.
The first inning did not promise good things for the Orioles' Taiwanese pitcher, but not by any fault of his own, as twice with two outs his defense would bungle throws to first, allowing the Sox a chance to score the first run with David Ortiz at the plate. While Chen managed to avoid damage in that particular situation, he could not in the second, when Cody Ross led off the inning with a triple and scored on a passed ball.
Jon Lester, meanwhile, had rolled through the first two innings without too much difficulty, picking up one strikeout, four ground balls and a pop-up around a J.J. Hardy single. He would make his first real mistake in the third, when he left a fastball up to Mark Reynolds. The powerful third baseman took advantage, launching a long fly ball into the Monster seats to tie the game.
The Sox would get rolling again, however, in the bottom half of the third, with Adrian Gonzalez finally breaking his hitless streak with a line drive to center field and Dustin Pedroia moving him over to third with a double. A pair of productive outs would score both runners, leaing the Sox on top 3-1.